Vineyards: Le Haut Lieu
The bedrock across all three vineyards is limestone known locally as tuffeau, a pale creamy-yellow stone which runs across much of this section of the Loire right down to Saumur. Here in the commune of Vouvray, at the heart of the Vouvray appellation, the tuffeau dates to the Upper Turonian, which makes it about 90 million years old (there are older limestones in other parts of the appellation though). Soft and easily worked, it has yielded many thousands of tons of building material for the region’s elegant châteaux, but it has also facilitated the creation of many kilometres of underground caves, cellars and troglodytic dwellings, often tunnelled out using nothing more than simple hand tools. Sitting atop this limestone base there is clay, perhaps also mixed with flint, in varying depths and proportions depending on the vineyard in question.
As I have already mentioned Gaston Huet set about enlarging his estate, which originally comprised only the vines of Le Haut Lieu, below the house. From small beginnings the domaine grew, and today it accounts for approximately 35 hectares of the Vouvray appellation, of which 23 hectares are accounted for by three very significant vineyards. There was also briefly a fourth, Vodanis, acquired in 2000 but then let go in 2003. As its time in the Huet portfolio was so short I will not provide any specific detail of this vineyard here, but will instead focus on the three famous vineyards of Clos de Bourg, Le Mont and Le Haut Lieu.
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